Getting to Know SEO

In Getting to Know SEO, content analyst and SEO expert Andre Kibbe gives you a solid grasp of what SEO is all about, and how it can help you generate steady and sustainable traffic to your site or product.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO , is one of the most powerful tools you can use to get traffic to your (or your client’s) website.

As you progress through the book, you’ll learn about structuring a website for SEO , the importance of keywords, research and strategy, link building, and understanding backlinks.

By the time you reach the final page, you’ll be equipped to use SEO personally and professionally to give your websites an edge against the competition.

From the author…

Hi, I’m Andre, and in my new book Getting to Know SEO , I drill down into the basics of keyword research and how to incorporate your high-leverage keywords into your content.

Whether you have a blog or an e-commerce site, you need to have a keyword strategy that accounts for what’s visible on the page, and what’s baked into your site’s HTML .

You’ll find out how editing the title tag of a web page can make a huge difference, and how to compare the commercial value of dozens of keywords using a spreadsheet and a formula that projects the potential AdSense earnings each keyword would bring in with a #1 ranking.

One thing you won’t get from Getting to Know SEO is a dump of questionable SEO theory and tips. Genuine SEO isn’t an overnight phenomenon. It’s simple, but not easy.

If you’re willing to do the work of writing and editing your content to be keyword compliant, and do some link building, you can get the most sustainable, qualified traffic available: search traffic. If you’re serious about using SEO to drive traffic to your site and you’re unsure of how to get started, then my book can help you.

What the book covers…

Content + Links = SEO: The particulars of SEO might change from moment to moment, but the two pillars of SEO —content and links—remain unchanged. We’ll discuss how the content on your web pages need to closely match what is being typed into a search engine, meaning that it needs to have “relevancy”. More importantly, it needs to have links from other websites to be recognized as an authority source, which give the content “authority”. Authority depends on the number of links received and the text used in those links.

The Importance of Keywords: The biggest flaw in the “just write good content” argument from an SEO perspective is writers’ frequent misunderstanding of how search engines recognize content, which often requires more literal wording to be indexed under a particular search term. You’ll learn how a few simple changes in the wording of your page copy to focus on keywords (the phrases people type into search engines) can have dramatic effects on search engine rankings.

Keyword Research Explained: Once the effects of keywords choices are understood, you need a strategy for picking out better keywords. We’ll take a look at the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, used to generate and compare hundreds of keyword ideas by showing you their search frequency and cost-per-click (CPC).

On-Page Optimization: By learning a handful of simple HTML concepts, you’ll understand how to optimize your web pages for search engines. On-page SEO involves placement of keywords in certain HTML elements: the title tag, the meta description tag, the anchor text used in links, the alt-text used in photos, and so on.

Understanding Backlinks: Due to Google’s revolutionary PageRank algorithm, links unquestionably play the most important role in a web page’s position in search engines. You’ll learn the main factors that determine the quantity and quality of the links you can attract naturally, and the ones that can be built… less naturally.

Getting Links: Link building is the hardest part of SEO . We’ll take a look at some of the safest and most reliable techniques for getting links.

Understanding Competition: Some market niches are more competitive than others, and within a particular niche, some keywords are more competitive than others. Evaluating the competitiveness of the keywords you’re planning to target is critical. Competitive analysis will show you how to find keywords that you can rank for in a couple of weeks, rather than several months. You’ll find other keywords that, however seductive, are simply too competitive to spend time targeting.

Sharpening the Saw: As mentioned, SEO is a rapidly changing field due to Google’s frequent algorithm updates. We’ll take a look at a handful of highly respected websites that provide great information on current best practices.